If you picture back to school this year as including an unusually large amount of whole group instruction due to social distancing, don’t assume that you might as well not even break out all of those great task cards you’ve collected! So maybe you aren’t going to be doing small group or partner activities […]
For many teachers, it’s about that time – time to start collecting materials, buying new supplies, searching for free resources, and sorting through old stuff to see what will will work for the upcoming year. Back to school instruction may look different this year that it did last (in a way isn’t that how […]
It’s that time of year – time to round up some simple, easy to use resources for kids to take home for summer practice. Maybe your kids (or their parents) want some review work to take home. Maybe you are required to send home some practice work to help students keep their skills current. […]
Do kids really need to write poetry? To me, that is the wrong question. The more important question is how can writing poems help kids to meet their language arts goals? And the short answer to that is there are LOTS of ways poetry can help boost a kids language abilities. For instance: […]
A column in the Washington Post about New Year’s resolutions for the media led to this idea for a beginning-of-the-year writing lesson for January. The column, “Here are four suggested New Year’s resolutions for the media,” in the December 31, 2019 Post, proposed resolutions for journalists such as to spend more time reporting what […]
The basic rule of subject-verb agreement is hard enough to explain to kids! A singular subject takes a singular verb – but a singular verb looks like a plural noun because it ends with an -s, and a plural noun takes a plural verb – but a plural verb looks like a singular noun […]
This Autumn Sampler is my freebie of the season. It’s a set of three autumn-themed activity sheets with a little bit of reading, writing, and vocabulary practice on each one. I call it a “sampler” since each activity is one little part from one of my larger resources, and this week just seemed like […]
Here is a free chart of proofreading rules. It includes basic rules for run-on sentences and fragments, grammar, capitalization, punctuation, and spelling – the rules that middle school and upper elementary kids need to check for repeatedly. Download a copy below and post it on your classroom wall or make a copy for […]
For a class of middle grade kids who love to work in groups and love to move around the room, task cards can be your go-to resource. They are so handy to have around and pull out throughout the year as needed. And task cards work great for any language arts skills – reading, writing, […]
Freedom of the press is a topic that is both timely and perennial as a subject for classroom activities. Whether in language arts, reading, or social studies class, a discussion of freedom of the press can lead into all kinds of great reading and writing lessons as well as friendly debates! As I […]
A group writing lesson is a great activity for adding a little fun and class participation into a topic that is usually done on a more individual basis. Group writing can be done as a whole class or in small groups; either way provides an engaging lesson for middle school or upper elementary kids. […]
Of the many education websites that have stood the test of time, one of my favorites is ReadWriteThink. It’s from the National Council of Teachers of English, so you can count on finding lessons there that are high quality and right in line with Language Arts standards. Filtering the lessons by grade level will […]
Connotations – it’s a tricky subject! But luckily middle schoolers and upper elementary kids are good at understanding connotations in their own gossipy way! Now they just need to apply that vocabulary skill to academic activities rather than just decoding the word nuances in a typical “he said . . . she said . […]
Figurative language and imagery! Teaching these concepts can be a fun part and a dreaded part of the language arts curriculum – all at the same time! Kids in middle school and upper elementary are still much more comfortable with writing whatever comes to their minds rather than working slowly to craft language, and […]
Proofreading means different things to different kids. For some it may just mean adding punctuation at the end of their sentences and capital letters at the beginning. Others may spend most of their proofreading time getting their spelling right. And others will be checking for various types of simpler or more complex grammar points. […]
As adults, before we finish writing something we may know that we want to make this or that type of changes in order for the finished piece to sound the way we want it to. But for kids, finishing that first draft is a big accomplishment in itself. As far as revising, kids may […]
By the middle grades, kids know that prewriting is the first step of the writing process, but do they really understand why they have to do it? In one form or another, prewriting means jotting down ideas before beginning to write a story or essay in sentences and paragraphs, and doing some good […]
Over the years I’ve posted lots of writing prompts – some narrative, some opinion or argument, and some informative or explanatory. So last year, I decided to group the prompts in each category together into one post. This year, I decided to take my organizing one step further and post, in one place, links […]
Writing to a prompt, writing without a prompt, quick writes, and full writings using all the steps of the writing process – as an English teacher, you’ll probably have your kids doing many of these activities repeatedly throughout the school year. By middle school or the upper elementary grades, kids have learned the basic […]
Here are free templates for two Memorial Day Poems that middle school or upper elementary students will enjoy completing as the end of the school year approaches. Memorial Day, observed on the last Monday in May, is celebrated in two ways. It is a holiday in honor of soldiers who died in the […]
At a certain time of year, students and teachers alike are daydreaming about summer getaways. Maybe your perfect vacation would be a trip to one of the great old cities of Europe. Maybe it would be days of quiet hiking in the mountain air. Kids are thinking ahead to family trips or imagining adventures […]
To follow up on my last-week’s post about teaching kids to revise, here is some more specific information about my revising resources designed especially for quick practices on specific revising skills. Revising Task Cards Revising Task Cards is a set of 30 large task cards, with plenty of content on each card for […]
Just getting started on writing an essay takes a big effort for many kids (and adults), so it’s no wonder that once they put the period after the final sentence, students can be reluctant to make any changes. Revising, in other words, is a challenge – both to do and to teach! To […]
This week, I’m posting over at Middle School Mob. Read the full article, Building and Remodeling Sentences, here. You’ll see ideas for practical ideas for for composing and revising sentence activities which focus on the parts of speech as well as phrases and clauses, along with a link to my new writing and revising sentences […]
Getting kids to improve their own compositions can be difficult, maybe because they sometimes don’t know where to start. If your kids could use some review of writing interesting sentences or revising at the sentence level, here are a few ideas. How about working with one part of speech at a time. Give […]
Women’s History Month is a great time for biographies, especially now that there is lots of great informational text about women leaders available in all subject areas – Literature, Science, Math, History, Art, and on and on! Maybe this would be a good month to have students choose a few of these people that […]
How to teach parts of speech within a writing/revising lesson – How to teach writing/revising using the parts of speech – Read about lesson ideas for incorporating these two important language arts skills into some interesting and engaging lessons in this guest post at TiePlay Education. Have ideas to add? I’d love to […]
I’ve just finished a major revision and update of my Expanding and Revising Sentences presentation, and so I wanted to share some of the contents. In addition to revising the existing content and adding new clip art, I’ve added lots of new content as well. I’ve added sections about combining sentences with coordinating conjunctions […]
Continuing with my ideas for using picture books to introduce various language arts topics, I’ve been looking over some more books for good examples of writing with vivid verbs. And as always, the picture books didn’t disappoint! I’ll just mention two that have really good examples, Animal Poems by Valerie Worth and Gorky Rises […]
With the inauguration of the next president quickly approaching and many teachers planning patriotic lessons of one kind or another, I would like to offer a few writing prompts (or discussion questions) for the occasion. These prompts are each based on a quote from President Obama’s farewell address to the country. Quotes about […]
As important as it is for kids to write and write some more, sometimes you also want them to practice their background skills so that they can incorporate them in their writing more fluently. Kids can always use more practice on skills like working with parts of speech and using the mechanics or writing […]
The summer slide, of course, is that step backwards in their literacy skills that kids take during the summer while they are enjoying a break from school and having fun in the sun, but there are a number of ways to combat this phenomenon. Some kids enjoy reading during the summer and keep […]
Here are some illustrated writing prompts based on quotes on a variety of topics. These are prompts that were previously posted individually on this website – maybe they’ll be more useful all in one place. Also see my recently posted collections of narrative, informational, and opinion prompts (all in the Story Starter section of […]
Here are my informative, explanatory, and descriptive prompts from previous posts, as promised! The prompts are all designed with middle grade kids in mind. The selections include compare and contrast, create a design, and how-tos. Informative, Explanatory, and Descriptive Prompts Deadly Storms Compare a hurricane and a blizzard. How are they […]
Here are the opinion, argument, or persuasive prompts that I’ve posted individually at one time or another, all combined into one handy post now! The prompts are all designed with middle grade kids in mind. In addition to writing essays, the topics include creating a flyer and writing dialog. Hope you find some of these […]
“I can’t think of anything to write about!” We’ve all had students who use this as their go-to response whenever it’s time to do a little writing, and at this time of year, maybe it does seem like they’ve used up all of their best ideas. As spring arrives, maybe teachers can even […]
I’ve collected all the miscellaneous narrative prompts that I’ve posted here and combined them all into this one post, hopefully to make them more useful. There are both fiction and non-fiction narrative prompts here. Hope you find some of these free prompts useful for your classes! Narrative Prompts – Fiction Message […]
Could you use a few writing prompts for your students’ journals, maybe for when you go back after a snow holiday? Here are a couple of ideas for this frosty time of year. Snow Scene Describe how the view around your home changes when there is a big snowfall. Write about what […]
Picture books provide great examples for students of beginning sentences. In my last two “Opening Lines” posts, I wrote about beginning sentences that introduce the setting and beginning sentences that introduce the main character. This time, I’ll show you some examples of opening lines that hint at what’s to come. Like the others, this […]
Last week I wrote about using opening lines from favorite picture books as examples for students of different ways to begin a story or an essay. The problem was that there were so many choices I couldn’t narrow it down to enough for one blog post. So, “Opening Lines” is now a series […]
Did you ever . . .? Once I finally convinced my students not to begin their essays with, “I’m going to write about . . . ,” their next go-to opening sentence went something like this. “Did you ever wonder about . . .?” And, yes – starting with a question […]
These task cards are all designed specifically for the middle grades – four through seven. There is more content per card than on the typical elementary school task cards, so kids still get to move around when you’re doing an activity, but they also will spend a few more minutes on each card […]
These story dice look like a fun resource for introducing narrative writing. The set that I’m looking at here are called StoryTime Dice, and they’re from Imagination Generation, but there are a number of different choices from various companies. This set had dice for: • heroes •villains •settings •vehicles •tools •obstacles •and prizes […]
This summer, I’ve completely redone my writing prompt resources. Parts of my former writing prompt PowerPoints are now combined into one, Narrative Writing Prompts. Two new writing prompt resources, Informative/Explanatory Writing Prompts and Opinion/ Argument Writing Prompts are now completed also. Each PowerPoint includes 25 prompts, each on an individual slide with student […]
For an end-of-the-year writing assignment with a fun follow-up, try this persuasive writing activity. Step 1 – Divide into Groups Tell the class that it’s time to review some vocabulary from this year, but that you can’t decide which type of review game to play – hangman (or whatever less-violent name you […]
Check out my guest post on One Stop Teacher Shop. It’s all about ways to use pictures to get kids motivated to write – ideas for using your own photos, picture books, and photos from news sources. See suggestions for ways to use these pictures to get kid started writing narrative, informational, and persuasive […]
Kids first learn about speaking in different tones by listening to the responses of the people they are talking to. They learn that certain tones are appropriate for certain situations and that different tones get different reactions. Learning to use various tones in writing is much more difficult because those cues from a […]
Sometimes, kids just don’t see the need for prewriting. Why fill out a graphic organizer if you are just going to copy it over into paragraphs anyway? Teaching kids how to prewrite isn’t hard, but teaching them that prewriting really is a useful process can be a tall order. Two activities that I […]
Memorial Day honors United States’ soldiers who died while serving their country in war. It was first celebrated after the Civil War when it was known as Decoration Day. Today people celebrate with many different activities including parades, ceremonies, and family picnics. Write about Memorial Day using one of these prompts: Write about […]
A Strategy for More Productive Prewriting Zoom Out In this first step, brainstorm ideas to write about. Use a blank sheet of paper or a simple bubble map, and jot down any and all ideas that come to mind. Once you have a good selection of ideas, rule out the ones that have […]
